Brazil In Transition

Brazil is the world's sixth-largest economy, and for the first three-quarters of the twentieth century was one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. While the country underwent two decades of unrelenting decline from 1975 to 1994, the economy has rebounded dramatically. How did this nation become an emerging power? Brazil in Transition looks at the factors behind why this particular country has successfully progressed up the economic development ladder. The authors examine the roles of beliefs, leadership, and institutions in the elusive, critical transition to sustainable development. Analyzing the last fifty years of Brazil's history, the authors explain how the nation's beliefs, centered on social inclusion yet bound by orthodox economic policies, led to institutions that altered economic, political, and social outcomes. Brazil's growth and inflation became less variable, the rule of law strengthened, politics became more open and competitive, and poverty and inequality declined. While these changes have led to a remarkable economic transformation, there have also been economic distortions and inefficiencies that the authors argue are part of the development process. Brazil in Transition demonstrates how a dynamic nation seized windows of opportunity to become a more equal, prosperous, and rules-based society.

Portugal and Brazil in Transition was first published in 1968. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Through a series of essays on various aspects of Portuguese and Brazilian culture, this book presents an enlightening picture of contemporary civilization in the two countries and a forecast of what the next twenty years or so may bring. The authors discuss subjects in such basic fields as literature, linguistics, history, the social sciences, geography, the fine arts, music, and natural science. Taken as a whole, the contents demonstrate the logic of organizing a volume not around a geographical concept but, rather, around a historical concept, in this case "the world the Portuguese created," as Gilberto Freyre described it. The essays are based on papers that were given at the Sixth International Colloquium of Luso-Brazilian Studies, held in the United States in 1966. In addition to the essays, the book contains the text of comments and discussion about the papers. There are twenty-seven major essays by as many contributors and comments by a number of discussants.

Shows that economic concerns about jobs, costs, and consumption, rather than climate change, are likely to drive energy transition in developing countries.

Brazil has the tragic distinction of having endured the longest military-authoritarian regime in South America. Yet the country is distinctive for another reason: in the 1970s and 1980s it witnessed the emergence and development of perhaps the largest, most diverse, most radical, and most successful women's movement in contemporary Latin America. This book tells the compelling story of the rise of progressive women's movements amidst the climate of political repression and economic crisis enveloping Brazil in the 1970s, and it devotes particular attention to the gender politics of the final stages of regime transition in the 1980s. Situating Brazil in a comparative theoretical framework, the author analyzes the relationship between nonrevolutionary political change and changes in women's consciousness and mobilization. Her engaging analysis of the potentialities for promoting social justice and transforming relations of inequality for women and men in Latin America and elsewhere in the Third World makes this book essential reading for all students and teachers of Latin American politics, comparative social movements and public policy, and women's studies and feminist political theory.

The transition from authoritarian to democratic government in Brazil unleashed profound changes in government and society that cannot be adequately understood from any single theoretical perspective. The great need, say Graham and Wilson, is a holistic vision of what occurred in Brazil, one that opens political and economic analysis to new vistas. This need is answered in The Political Economy of Brazil, a groundbreaking study of late twentieth-century Brazilian issues from a policy perspective. The book was an outgrowth of a year-long policy research project undertaken jointly by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, both at the University of Texas at Austin. In this book, several noted scholars focus on specific issues central to an understanding of the political and economic choices that were under debate in Brazil. Their findings reveal that for Brazil the break with the past—the authoritarian regime—could not be complete due to economic choices made in the 1960s and 1970s, and also the way in which economic resources committed at that time locked the government into a relatively limited number of options in balancing external and internal pressures. These conclusions will be important for everyone working in Latin American and Third World development.